Before You Post That Picture of Your Stash...

[Ragnarok]

...or anything else - here or anywhere else - take a look at this. Must read, imo:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Web-Photos-That-Reveal-nytimes-2375510549.html?x=0&.v=1

Snip:

"When Adam Savage, host of the popular science program “MythBusters,” posted a picture on Twitter of his automobile parked in front of his house, he let his fans know much more than that he drove a Toyota Land Cruiser.

Embedded in the image was a geotag, a bit of data providing the longitude and latitude of where the photo was taken. Hence, he revealed exactly where he lived. And since the accompanying text was “Now it’s off to work,” potential thieves knew he would not be at home."

At least, take the picture somewhere else, like out in the middle of nowhere.

fyi, R.

[MNeagle]

another reason I stick w/ my 'old fashioned' film camera...

[Saul Mine]

People ask why I keep fixing a 27 year old car. It's because it records absolutely nothing about where I have been or what I have done.

[madfranks]

My buddy was showing me his new iphone 4, and every picture you take with it's camera it uses the GPS to record the location of where the pic was taken. I haven't done any thought to the utility of such a feature, but if that info is included as a signature to the picture file, then yes, every time you share a picture you're also sharing where it was taken.

[StackerKen]

The OP story may be true with an Iphone and the like, like Madfranks pointed out.

But I don't think my little cheap digital camera has a GPS in it.

and I don't think my wife's Cannon Rebel slr has one either....at least I don't think it does..

.How could I know?

[PatColo]

I figured it was going to say, the land-cruiser guy showed his license plate or something.

Need more dirt on these geo-tags. Are they only integrated with camera-cell-phones? Not in your basic panasonic digi-cam? You'd think... unless single-purpose digi-cams secretly have GPS electronics integrated...

Then I'm assuming the geo-tag isn't something you can see visually just looking at the picture (?), instead it's somehow displayed by looking at the picture-file's "properties"? Or is it even more coy, like you need to crack open the pic-file and the location info is implanted "hidden" in the digital 1's & 0's?

So I'm guessing that printing a copy of the pic on a printer, and showing it to someone (without access to the digital pic-file), they wouldn't be able to identify the coordinates?

What if you change the pic file from it's native format, to say .JPG or .BMP or whatever, before sharing/publishing it; assume it would lose the coordinates embedded in the native format?

[SLV^GLD]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geotagging#JPEG_photos

All file formats do not have the header space for geotag metadata. A conversion to a non-compliant format would eradicate the metadata.

[MNeagle]

Here's more: http://gold-silver.us/forum/general-discussion/posting-pictures-online-reveals-more-than-you-know/

[Saul Mine]

http://owl.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/

A free program to inspect and edit metadata in .jpeg images.

[chad]

i actually find the feature incredibly useful.

i have to take dozens, sometimes hundreds of photos of public places as part of my job. i used to have to carry around a notebook and make notes every 2 or 3 pictures as to the address, etc. to identify them later. then when i added them to websites, etc. i had to go back and cross reference every photo with the notes.

now i just take the pictures, download them, and my work is done. it's literally shaved 10 hours or more off my workweek.

[Ragnarok]

Included geodata in image files may indeed be useful for many purposes beneficial to those involved.

The warning goes out to those who may potentially be victimized by malicious use of that data.

Just sayin, R.

[Uncle Salty]

It also provides the opportunity to mislead. Just change the geotags and people think you have been where you are not.

It works both ways.

[1970 silver art]

The OP story may be true with an Iphone and the like, like Madfranks pointed out.

But I don't think my little cheap digital camera has a GPS in it.

and I don't think my wife's Cannon Rebel slr has one either....at least I don't think it does..

.How could I know?


My stand alone digital camera does not have GPS in it. When I take pictures of my art bars or anything else, I take those pictures with that stand alone digital camera. I am not worried about that. My smartphone has a camera on it and it has GPS on it as well but I do not use my smartphone for taking pics.

[Cebu_4_2]

There are 2 different type of cameras that record the location. Both can be reprogrammed to eliminate that data but I cant find the link, let me look around again.

NO DEALS, SORRY.